


A Wilted Rose

by TheWritingNovice



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, But i try to stick to the canon the best I can at least pre metacrisis doctor, Drabble, Drama, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Maybe smut if i get bored?, Promise, Romance, Smut, Started as a drabble but i will make it a thing i promise u, Yeah lets just tage it to be safe, and angry, and it will get sad, but its still a bit fluffy too, but shes still unsure, i promise u im taking this seriously, non-canon, rose loves the doctor, ur gonna hate me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 02:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21549850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingNovice/pseuds/TheWritingNovice
Summary: Rose lies awake one night, contemplating life in her alternate universe with her meta-crisis Doctor. Her current life is happy, more than she could have ever thought she'd amount to. Yet she still finds reason to be restless. (This was a drabble and also a method of procrastinating an essay, but I've written worse things. And I'm definitely planning on continuing)
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: A Restless Night

**AN: I hope you enjoy, I barely post what I write so this is a big deal for me and constructive feedback is always appreciated! I'm not a writing major lmao**

Rose Tyler lied in her bed, the wiry arms of her loving husband wrapped around her. He was her Doctor but he wasn't really the Doctor. He was in so many ways so much more of what she needed and what she was expected to want. A human who could love her and whom she could love back. And someone she actually did love with a fierce intensity.

It had been three years they had been together now. Three years after that heartbreaking second beach goodbye with that Timelord who had given her the very best thing she could ask for after himself. He gave her him but in a slightly more human packaging. A him who she had been married to nigh a year now.

It was a small ceremony, intimate and sweet. She wore white. He wore a suit that didn't have pinstripes or a clashing pair of converse to go with it. Jackie cried, Mickey cried. Pete insisted on not crying but looked a little teary nonetheless as he gave Rose away. She could still never be more thankful for having a father to give her away when only a handful of years ago the thought would have been impossible. She had her departed timelord on the other side of the void to thank for that. She still wished she had a way to talk to him and thank him for everything they went through... but that would void everything he had wanted for her in this universe so she had never really considered trying to break through again.

However life had been far from dull with her husband. They had both decided that helping this worlds version of Torchwood was probably the best decision to fulfil both of their needs to help the world and still be in touch with a little extra-terrestrial chaos. Although neither of them could really not stick to Mickey and Jake's instructions even now.

The boys had essentially become the runners of Torchwood now, at least by name. Pete wanted to take a step back after Tony, Rose's little baby brother was born. Mickey and Jake never fought over who should run things; a joint partnership just happened naturally. However Rose and the Doctor were the ones that made all the big decisions. They just didn't want their names on record because as far as this world was concerned, Rose and John Smith were just an ordinary domestic couple both with reputable roles at one of Torchwood's many cover companies H.C. Clemence.

And her Doctor... John Smith legally but still the man she called the Doctor every single day. She did love and adore him with every single thing she had. How could she not? Aside from a biological difference that he had no control in, his humanity, he was in fact the same man she had met and fallen in love with at 19 years old. Sure he was experiencing different things than that same man who now probably adventures with whichever other assistants he had found in his universe but he had also experiencing three years of domestic life with her. And he wasn't bored or wearied with her like she had always feared her original Doctor may have come to feel with all his Timelord grandiosity. John Smith, the human Doctor, adored Rose and actively showed it in ways the original Doctor never could.

Rose continued to stay awake in her bed, in her husbands arms, both comfortable and restless. For she was so happy, so content with her life and yet she knew that she would never be able to not have nights like this. Where she missed her original Doctor and wondered what he was doing in that big, chaotic universe that used to be hers. And if he ever thought of her too or if he'd repressed her like every other painful memory he had been so reluctant to share.

Get too close to the Doctor and he'll burn you brain forever.

Rose slowly slipped her way out of her lovers arms, being careful not to wake him and tucking him cosily into the covers so he didn't lose any warmth from her absence. She then quietly made her way to the bathroom down the hall and opened a small compartment of the under the sink cabinet she knew her husband would never think to look in. She pulled a small white box out and pulled a plastic stick from inside it. She hadn't believed her eyes earlier when she'd taken the test so she'd left it to rest there so she could pretend to be oblivious for a little longer.

But those two little red lines staring back at her weren't oblivious. They were very knowing and scary. She held the gentle, small swell of her stomach which she had been trying to convince herself for the past week was just the result of too many chip shop visits. She stood, holding herself there and took a deep breath to herself tears streaming down her face. This had never been part of the plan.


	2. The Doctor's Humanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor contemplates human life, the good and the bad. And how he feels about finally having a non-platonic relationship with his beloved Rose Tyler.

Chapter Two: The Doctor's Humanity

  
A lot of the time, the Doctor born as the result of a human metacrisis wondered if anyone ever realised how difficult it was for him to live with his own humanity. If even the version of himself that he came from, truly understood what he was doing by leaving him to the Earth, to domestic life and to the things that accompanied all that living.   
Three years as regular Joe Human or in this case John Smith are not something he would exchange for anything. In fact the Doctor cherished the humanity he now had. The excitement that life held now, the daily thrill he received just form being alive and knowing that this was actually his one shot at everything! If anyone else was able to look him straight in the eye and tell him that after 900 years of living they didn't sometimes hope there would be an end to it, then he'd consider them a liar. And he didn't necessarily mean that in a depressed or suicidal way, not at all! Life was beautiful and the Doctor was happy to live it. Now he felt purpose where before he had felt aimless wandering. It's like an eventual death sentence almost gave him more potential to do big things with the one life (although at this point it was like 10+1) he was given.

  
Yet the Doctor was still curious if that other version of himself ever knew the struggle he had given him along with this blessing. The cautiousness that comes in human skin. The Doctor was now expected to protect and preserve himself for the one's he loved, and he felt compelled to do so because he held so much, unlimited, unimaginable compassion in his soft, emotional human heart. Then there was aggression, which was far more palpable now than it had ever been in his Timelord self. Hell hath no fury like a raging timelord, like the oncoming storm but that type of anger was reserved and specially chosen for the appropriate time and place. Human anger was irrational, instinctual and somewhat animalistic. It was almost a whole different experience to Timelord anger. The only thing he could recollect before this that was somewhat similar was maybe the big-eared, leather jacketed version of him screaming at a Dalek in Van Staten's playground. That was potentially the only time pre-meta crisis that he had experienced something close to an adreniline rushed, scared, anxious but yet somehow all-the-more-leathel human anger.  
And then there was the mundanity that would sometimes befall his brain. Sometimes, even for this more human version of himself, he still could not wrap his mind on how human's could be entertained by the most trivial, pathetic and sometimes downright awful things. Of course the Doctor had always been aware of humanities more awful tendencies, but to live amongst them truly was painful. To see media coverage of mass murderers, politically fuelled wars, violence, torture, death and destruction and all by a species that had started out as nothing more than slightly more intelligent apes. It was impressive, appalling and nauseating all at the same time. And even without the most extreme awfulness of humanity, you still had to see them all whine and binge and consume themselves in the toxicity of the culture that they had all created. And of course as a timelord he had been aware of this and still seen the positives of humanity as enough to love them but... living through it was like another layer of it that he'd never wanted to see.

  
Thankfully there was one part of this Doctor's life, one beautiful part that made it more worth it than anything. And the fact that she was the one that made life more worth it than anything was probably the most human thing he'd felt both before and after the metacrisis. Because the thing, the person that made him feel more happy and alive than anything else, was Rose Tyler. The same Rose Tyler who was squeezing his hand tightly right now as they walked down the street after a lovely little cinema date. The couple always shared at least one date a week if they could manage it. It was all very domestic and the Doctor had been quite hesitant to join in the tradition of "date night" at first. It seemed like something old couples did when their marriages got stale. Not for the likes of him and Rose, because the fire was definitely burning as brightly as ever. And yet, he grew to love it. The simple little human tradition which always led to some strange new restaurant discovery, or a laughably bad movie to watch, or sometimes just a bar, some drinks and her wonderful company which was all he'd ever really needed anyway. Which is why even now he was beaming at her as he walked down the street, all cheesy grinned and glisteny eyed.

  
The Doctor had allowed himself to become so humanly, irrefutably in love with Rose Tyler that even she sometimes joked he was like a teenage boy with his first schoolgirl crush. Even now she was blushing and looking away slightly abashed. After three years together she still got embarrassed. But she was right. He was basically like a schoolboy with his first crush. When she'd first said this he'd always drabbled out the excuse that as he was a metacrisis Doctor with a newly human body, that he was essentially having to rerun puberty with all the newly found chemicals raging inside him that his timelord self had been unfamiliar with. Whilst that explanation was somewhat true, the doctor had known he was fully capable of regulating that, for the most part at least.   
It wasn't chemicals that had him feeling this was for Rose Tyler. It's that for all those years he'd spent travelling with her, and then pining for her on the other side of the universe, he'd never been able to allow himself to get that close. He had craved that intimacy with her for all that time; the romance, the sex and most importantly to fall in love with her which had happened regardless of whatever control he'd try to have over it. But he'd still had to restrict himself for all that time because the truth of the matter is that for all that time he'd held a power over her that would have made it unethical for him to pursue anything. He was a timelord, a creature that could life for ever, with intelligence unfathimal to humanity and a spaceship capable of space and timetravel all wrapped up in a blue box shaped bow. He also had an unreasonably good gage of when human's were attracted to him, at the time he could even smell it pheremonoly. It would have been unfair to pursure Rose when he was already aware of her attraction and when he was the one that was responsible for keeping her safe. It would have been unfair to Jackie, the mother who at the time had hated his guts for taking her baby away. Jackie whom already had the fear of her daughter dying on a planet far, far away. It would have been unfair to Mickey, despite how courteous he had been in the end when he finally decided to leave for the universe they now both resided in.

  
And, in possibly his most selfish reasoning at the time, it was unfair to himself. Because he couldn't live with fully allowing himself to be with Rose Tyler and watching her eventually grow old and die, living a life he could never follow and then eventually losing her to the death he couldn't experience. Not even if he killed himself.

  
"Doctor?"

  
The Doctor allowed himself to be pulled out of the surprisingly dark spiral his mind had undergone and looked back towards his Rose who herself had a small look of concern on her face.

  
"What were you thinking about? Your eyebrows were doing the scrunchy thing."

  
The Doctor immediately wiggled his eyebrows at the mention of them being tensed up. 

  
"Oh just... you. Us. Coupley, mushy stuff. Bleugh"

  
This immediately caused Rose to stop in her tracks, pulling the doctor to a stop too as she pulled him by his hand. She brought herself closer towards him, placing both of her arms around his neck

  
"Oh really? And why is "us" putting that scrunchy look on your face? Did I do something? Did you do something? Did we do something?" Rose teased lightly.

  
You could hear the joy she took in questioning the Doctor in her sing song intonation. She did it all the time in the Tardis, minus the arms wrapped around the neck obviously because of the boundaries that were there at the time. Still the Doctor knew that she did really want to know what was going on underneath that skull of his. But sometimes these things were just very difficult to explain.  
The Doctor sighed as he moved his hands to sit firmly around either side of Roses waist and pulled her in even closer. He didn't need his old timelord senses to see the dilation of pupils or hear the increase of breath. He loved that this was the effect that he could still manage to have on her, and that she, possibly unbeknown to her, still did the same to him every single day.

  
"It's nothing either of us have done. Just my brain overthinking. Over-analysing..."

  
"So the usual then?" she cut in smirking. The Doctor looked up and rolled his eyes.

  
"Yes. The usual. Because the truth is I never have, and I never will be as happy as I am, when I'm with you... Rose Tyler"

  
Rose smiled, the Doctor could see the mistiness in her eyes with those last two words.

  
"I love you." he stated.

  
Rose pressed her face against the Doctor's. Lips softly colliding, slowly at first but with no hesitation whatsoever. She loved melting into moments like this so much. Him being so adorable and sweet and just unknowingly the most attractive human on this planet. In moments like this she just wished she could box them up and live in them forever. 

  
The pair began to increase speed at a slightly alarming rate, her hands were in his hair and neither one of them had come up for the vital oxygen they needed. She could feel the blood rushing in her brain and her adrenaline levels spiking as her body began to tingle. It'd been a little too long since their last time intimate. Unfortunately H.C.Clemece i.e. torchwood had been having a busy time lately. Sometimes the government got cocky with them as they seem to have a superiority complex on being able to handle extra-terrestrial affairs by themselves despite having been proven wrong several times. The Doctor is surprisingly charismatic in a negotiating environment so he has been tagging along to several important negotiations leaving Rose alone with boring admin. Unfortunately any hands on alien activity had gone dry for quite some time. But it had left both of them working on completely different projects and completely away from each other except for home and whenever it was possible to schedule a date night it.

  
And unfortunately, Rose couldn't lie to herself, she had been hesitant with him too. He hadn't complained or anything but she could tell thoughts were running through his head. She was just hoping that wasn't one of them. Because it wasn't that she had lost her attraction. If anything she felt the opposite, it was like being a woman dying of thirst in a desert, especially in moments like this. But the swell of her stomach had her paranoid. She wasn't ready to tell till she had a Doctor's (no pun intended) appointment to confirm what she did not trust a stick to tell her. It wasn't as if she was far gone, in fact if she told anyone else she saw a bump already they'd consider her mad. Yet she still felt it, every time her hand fell to her stomach she could feel the life inside her. And it wasn't sitting right in her body. It was so hard to accept. So she wasn't ready for him to see and feel it, especially whilst he was unbeknown to what was going on in there. She just needed a little more time to process. Hopefully before morning sickness kicked in.

  
"GO ON, GET IN THERE!"

  
Rose broke away suddenly from the lovely embrace as she was startled to reality by the aggressive yell coming from a nearby car rushing by. She remembered why you shouldn't start snogging a man senseless in a random London street. Her libido would have to wait. Despite the Doctor's shocked and flushed looking face being both the cutest and most ravishing thing she had seen in a long time.

"Sorry, remind me not to kiss you like that whilst we're in public. What a dickhead though!" Rose giggled to herself, tongue-in teeth smile beaming at the Doctor, hoping to disarm the panic on his face the car seemed to cause. The Doctor then slowly returned the smile, cheekily almost. It's the look he gets when he's sussed something out.

  
"Rose?" he said, voice all deep and playful like it normally gets when he knows he's clocked something. He stepped closer towards her and took both of her hands in his.

  
"Yeah?" she responded, slight worry in her voice as she gripped onto the Doctor's hands tightly.

  
"Is there a reason both your hands went to your stomach when that idiot decided to yell at us?"


	3. Psychic Abilities

AN: I was quite sleepy by the end of writing this but I hope you enjoy! Uni sucks :)

Chapter 3: Psychic Abilities

Rose sat at her swish glass desk in her swanky too fancy office at "HC Clemence", the cover company with a motive that essentially ran down to being an overblown locksmith. She would never get over how many far too rich corporate companies ran down to such simple almost useless things. She would never complain but sometimes she felt really out of place here. She grew up on the estate, no fancy qualifications except a gymnastics medal and an excellent ability to bitch slap which she probably got from her Mum. Sure she'd learned on the job, both for this stupid cover company and for torchwood but... sometimes it was hard to not feel like an impostor. In this workplace full of impostors making a living on fancy locks.

Besides what good will an extra secure lock do when a Slitheen is crashing down your door?

Rose shook her head as she continued to flick through the Slitheen case file she was creating for the Torchwood archives. Turns out not everyone has a Slitheen kicking down their door, do they? Some people can rely on fancy locks. Wouldn't have been much use on Mum's tiny old flat though. Mickey and her stuck in that kitchen with nothing to defend themselves but pickled eggs. What could HC Clemence do to solve that problem? Rose giggled to herself at the thought. Thank God she had her own office where no one could see how hilarious she found herself. Or see the picture of the massive green Slitheen on her computer. That would require some explaining that only her husband could really pull off and he wasn't here right now. Too busy with Mickey doing whatever the heck down in parliament. All while she compiled an assortment of information on every single alien encounter the Earth had experienced in the past decade. Every. Single. One. And there were way more than you might think.

Rose continued to type. Origin planet: Raxacoricofallapatorius, Colour: Green, Height: Bloody tall... It was all just too dull to her. Rose didn't join Torchwood to type she joined to protect the Earth. Which she was, technically. After all once the original team was gone whoever carries on the fight needs to know what they're fighting. Not even the Doctor would be behind to tell them now. His mortality was both a blessing to her and a curse to the Earth.

Rose pushed her chair back from the desk. It was a spinny chair so she often found herself rotating in it when she was feeling bored, stressed, worried... in this case all three. Her brain could not focus for the life of her. Especially not after date night. Such a wonderful night and then she had to go drop herself in it. She had to touch her stomach. And of course he noticed. He was sharp as a knife where she was as blunt as a ruler. Not that he would ever allow her to say that but she could still think it privately. She'd tried to play it off and that was the most stupid thing she could have done. The Doctor would always see straight through her, never mind being a super intelligent sort of extra-terrestrial he was her fucking soulmate. He saw everything in her. Including her lying and her insecurities.

_"What do you mean?" Rose asked, slightly dumbfounded at what her husband had just asked her._

_"Your stomach, you immediately put your hands over your stomach when he yelled. Rose are"_

_"NO! Maybe! I mean I don't... I don't"_

_"You felt threatened and you went to protect what was most important. It was your first instinct. You are.."_

_"Stop! Please!"_

_The doctor shut up, struck at Rose's outburst. Concerned as he saw the tears welling in her eyes because they did not look happy. They looked sad. And it confused him. The moment he'd thought she could have been pregnant he felt nothing but excitement and yet she seemed so unsure and conflicted._

_Rose took a deep breath, unable to look her partner in the eye, instead staring at the floor..._

_"I took a pregnancy test about a week ago. It was positive. But I haven't had the time to get another to confirm and I didn't want to say anything till I went to the GP to be sure."_   
_The Doctor processed the information, it was all rational and reasonable but he still couldn't understand the unhappiness on his wife's face._

_"Right.." was all he managed to respond with._

_"I'm just not ready to talk about it until I actually know."_

And that was it. He was lovely about it of course. Hugged her tightly, wiped away her tears and didn't say a word related to pregnancy, babies or any domestic-ness of the sort. He couldn't have been sweeter but it only made it worse. She saw the glee in his eyes the moment he clocked what was possibly happening and he saw the disappointment when he realised she wasn't experiencing that same excitement.

It wasn't that she hadn't thought about this. A baby with her wonderful husband. She can't imagine the amount of love-struck companions that might have given an arm and a leg to be in the position that she is in right now. Her mind wandered to Sarah-Jane. Someone who in the universe had never even met her. Someone who had seemed almost as in love with the Doctor as she had. Maybe she could have fit the perfect mother role a bit better than Rose would.

Rose really needed to stop with these awful thoughts. The Doctor would hate to know that she thought about all these things.

But Rose really would love the idea of a family with the Doctor. In a theoretical world where she didn't have to worry about their little heads being sliced off by Slitheen or them being kidnapped for ransom by scavenger aliens or shipped across the universe and stolen from her forever! So many things could happen to the kids of the Doctor and Rose Tyler. Herself and the Doctor weren't just key members of the team defending the earth, they were practically targets with giant red x's on their foreheads. The amount of times they had almost had to go into hiding over threats on their lives... but they hadn't because at the end of the day they could decide if their lives were worth sacrificing for the Earth. But their children..? She would never ever want their children to live in that same where she would be having to make that decision for them! She would never want to put them in that place to begin with! Which is why she had always assumed that herself and the Doctor would never be the kind of couple who had children. It's not like they'd been reckless either; Rose had had to take a break from her birth control due to some unfortunate side effects a few months back and hadn't had the time to get onto a new method. Her and the Doctor had still stuck to the barrier method though. And Rose had honestly thought it may not be possible for the pair to have children anyway. The Doctor was obviously human enough as far as mortality went but he was at the end of the day still part of a metacrisis... still a little bit Timelord. Rose probably should have thought to ask what that meant as fair as babies went but it was never a conversation she thought she needed to have.  
But it was a conversation they needed to have. And judging from the Doctor's reaction it was definitely possible.

-

Later that day, in the evening Rose was sprawled on the couch of her and the Doctor's comfy little home, watching some trash tv and eating a carton of cookie dough ice cream under a blanket. Her hair was tied into a top knot, her face wiped of the office slap she painted on to maintain her "professionalism" and she wore an oversized dark blue t-shift with some of the Doctor's boxers she'd stolen a long time ago. They were too comfy to stay his.

This sort of lounging activity was normally something she reserved for time of the month but that was long overdue and she was feeling pretty emotional at the moment anyway so she figured it was justified enough.

Rose put her carton of ice cream down after devouring about half the tub and continued to watch Stacey Solomon chatter to some late night TV host. She liked Stacey, even though she was a celebrity so everything she probably did was planned but the Dagenham girl seemed down-to-earth, relatable... like the type of friend she sometimes wished she had. Normal friendships were hard to have with a job like hers.

Rose was starting to drift off when she heard the front door click. She smiled to herself, despite all the stress she was having over him she did still miss him after a long day. The Doctor gently pushed open the living room door and stood in the corner of the dark room.

"Someone looks comfy." he smiled to himself.

Rose turned her head round to look her Doctor in the eyes. She noted he looked particularly snazzy today. Black and white formal suit, deep red silk tie. Brings out his eyes. Guess Mickey and Jake convinced him outta the pinstripes for their parliament meeting. That never happens. Must have been more important than usual. But that definitely didn't matter right now because he was just too delicious to look at.

"Someone looks fit. Who convinced you out of the pinstripes?" Rose asked playfully.

"What's wrong with the pinstripes?!" the Doctor retorted, not actually hurt but happy to play back.

"Nothing is wrong with the pinstripes. I just like the change"

Rose continued to eye the Doctor. He smirked at her appreciation and swaggered his way to the light switch on the wall. Suddenly the soft tv light was gone and the harsh overhead light replaced it. Rose groaned and recoiled back under her blanket.

"Why!" she exclaimed, sad that her cosy darkness had been taken away.

"Because I want to see my beautiful wife properly!"

"Bullshit! You can see in the dark fine! I know you can!"

"Well, I may also have wanted to see you run under that blanket when the light switch turned on. Now come out of there!" the Doctor demanded mischievously, budging himself next to Rose on the couch and pulling the blanket off her face but leaving her body covered. She propped herself up to face him, till swaddled in blanket but sitting up right now.

"Satisfied?" She asked, blowing a stand of her away from her face as she did so.

"Very." he smirked, content as Rose leaned into the side of his body.

The two sat their like that, eventually falling into a proper cuddling position, for about ten minutes. It was comforting and nice but there was still a slight tension in the room. They both knew that even though Rose had asked to not, that they both wanted to talk about the situation. The thing is, Rose didn't even know where to start.

"Doctor?" Rose asked, thankful she had finally managed to get a word out of her lips.

"Yeah?" he responded, sounding absent but still absolutely present in the conversation.

"I want to talk about it. But I don't know how."

"Okay... do you know where you want to start?"

"...not really?"

The Doctor sighed at this, not mad but having a feeling he knew where this was going to go. It was the easiest why to solve their most difficult communication issues after all.

"Can you picture what you want to say in your head? Even if you can't quite communicate it?"

"You know I can." Rose responded, feeling somewhat guilty but also knowing this really was the only way she knew how to tell him what she was feeling.

The Doctor moved from his cuddling position to sitting cross-legged on the couch, Rose did the same so they were facing each other.

"It has been a long day so I don't know how long I can maintain psychic connection. You know this a lot harder on my... human body."

"I know. You do what you can and I'll try my best to get it over to you as quick as I can". Rose responded, fully appreciating what her husband was doing for her in this moment.

The Doctor has always been able to use his psychic abilities to access information in people's brains, with their consent obviously, but it had been far easier to do it in his fully Timelord form. This metacrisis version of himself could miraculously still achieve psychic connection but it took far more of a tole on him than it ever had before. He only used it when he had to. Rose was probably the only person he had used it for for such personal and intimate reasons. But when one of them needed to communicate something but was struggling on how to it was a great aid. No tactless words or hurt feelings, just honest communication in assuming the other persons perspective completely.

And thankfully they could still form doors in their minds where they needed to. Though that was a rarity at this point.

The Doctor placed his hands up to either side of Rose's head, she placed her hands on either side of his crossed legs. She'd found that she could steady herself a little more if she had some sort of contact with him. The Doctor had assured her many times before it shouldn't make a difference but allowed her to do it every single time since then anyway. They both shared in the amusement that to any outsider they would have probably looked like a hippy couple trying to tune into each others auras or something along those lines.

"Close your eyes" he whispered softly. Rose followed his directions and he did the same.

Both their minds suddenly flooded with the other persons energy.

-

_The Doctor always found that travelling Rose's mind was the most blessed thing he could experience. It was a great honour for him to have her trust and that way and it gave him such a true insight not only into what she wanted to communicate to him and this point but also their own emotional and mental states._

_As the Doctor travelled the tunnels of Rose's mind, trying to follow where she was guiding him. He noticed a new door on his journey, that was a new thing she was uncomfortable with him seeing. He respected her privacy and kept moving but still held that curiosity in his stomach._

_Continuing to travel, the Doctor felt the undertones of what Rose had been feeling that day. The most resent emotions hit first. The worry and anticipation of this exchange. The comfort she had when they were cuddling on the couch. The underlying want that had been simmering for... a long time now. He knew she would likely be feeling a similar energy from him although she was slightly less attuned to this process so he was unsure how much she could suss out from him at this point. But Rose wanted him desperately, physically but also on an emotional level. She was feeling such fiery anguish from restricting herself and hurt from..._

_That was when the emotional goldmine hit him. She was scared. Terrified. Such raw human fear. Fear of being a mother. Fear of not being a good mother. Fear that she was already feeling so pregnant with not even a bump in sight. Fear of... how a human and human metacrisis baby would exist in this world... fear that any children they had would be in danger of the lifestyle they lived._

_Such images, such an awfully vivid and cruel imagination his sweet darling Rose had. The protective terror she had over their children who weren't even born yet and he understood it completely._

_More was flowing into his brain. She'd always wanted to be a Mum but never knew how. She'd loved her own Mum so dearly but did not want to be the same mother she was. She wanted a family but had never allowed herself to imagine it after the Doctor... not even just the metacrisis Doctor. Once she had met that first version of him all these years ago... with those awful ears. She'd known she was in love and that traditional family life wasn't going to happen. All those years back even when he'd never been able to let himself love her back._

_The Doctor could feel Rose's heavy breathing on his face, whist searching her brain she had managed to discard the blanket and wrap herself around him. His hands still remained on either side of her face but they were so close now. And funnily enough he wasn't feeling any of the tiredness he normally did from this process. But she was definitely showing signs of it. Her heart beat was elevated he could feel in inside his skull. Something about this connection was happening far more intensely that usual and for some reason it was feeding more on her energy than his._

"Rose are you okay? What's happening? Do you need me to stop this?" The Doctor questioned her, softness in his voice to not panic her but he was incredibly worried and needed an answer urgently.

"I'm...I'm travelling. I think I'm in your mind too."

"You can't be. Not without me guiding you there."

"You think in Galifreyan. Even to this day."

The Doctor felt his heart almost stop in it's tracks. If Rose was ever allowed into his mind he always translated his words. No one had ever heard himself speak, let alone think in his native language.

"Doctor is there is anything you don't want me to see then put your door's up now! I'm doing my best to respect your privacy but things are getting clearer and I don't know how to stop myself seeing certain things."

_-_

_Rose felt herself swimming in the Doctor's mind but it was a struggle. If her thoughts were a lake then his must be an ocean. There were so many images swimming around her. She could hear his thoughts speaking in a language she couldn't understand. But she knew it was Galifreyan. Immediately she knew. It was beautiful but foreign to her ears... or thoughts. And the longer she was in here the more she understood it. It wasn't even understanding what the words meant. His feelings would just emanate of every sound and the more she swam the more she understood._

_She swam where the current took her, assuming that was what the Doctor was guiding her towards now that she'd notified him of what was happening. The Doctor's mind was both beautiful and terrifying. Red stained glass with the beaming sun shining down. She could smell grass and salt and... her vanilla perfume. That perfume that she never stopped wearing even after Mickey had complained it hurt his nose. It was one of his favourite smells._

_The current continued to take her and she couldn't tell if it was swimming with her or if she was swimming with it. But the futher down it took her the more she could see where it was going. And there was his voice again. Grounding in all the chaos of his mind._

_He wanted her to know... how excited he was to be a Dad. How honoured he would be to have her be the mother of his child. How... he had been a Dad before. How much he'd cherished his daughter, his granddaughter. How sad he'd been to lose them. It was all so meaningful and heart wrenching at the same time._

_He knew her fears, he'd seen them in her mind. He felt the same. It hadn't been his first instinct but he knew the dangers that their children might face on the Earth they lived in with the positions they held. But with the fear was fiery-ness. Such an intense rage and determination to protect any potential child they may have. And that extended to Rose too. Oh God the protectiveness he felt over her. It was overwhelming. It was draining all the energy from her it was overwhelming. But she loved every second of the feeling. This must be that timelord still left in him because Rose was so aware that not just any human could feel things the way he felt things._

_She'd seen enough. She knew where he stood. And now she had to leave before this place truly drained everything her body had._

-

The Doctor and Rose remained tightly embraced together on the sofa, the doctors hand still gently resting on either side of Rose's head.

"Doctor, please help me cut this off now. I don't think I can take any more." Rose begged, her voice almost a whisper with how little energy she held in her body.

"Okay." The doctor assured her calmly. "Prepare yourself. I'm going to count you down."

Rose nodded her head in the Doctor's gentle.

"5, 4, 3...2..... 1. And go."

The doctor dropped his hands from Roses' temples and allowed her head to fall into his shoulder, fully wrapping his arms around her to keep her propped up.

Rose immediately felt the feeling of released as the psychic energy flooded away from her brain. She felt simply empty in the nicest why she could possible describe it. She breathed into the Doctors shoulder, the soft material of his suit feeling like the nicest thing in the world. She felt so tired but so happy. She had formed resolution in her head. She knew exactly what to say now. And she knew that her Doctor did too. And that as soon as she'd gotten herself together they could have a proper talk about what had just been exchanged.

And she was very content with that.

"I don't know what just happened." he spoke softly. "But let's plan it a bit better next time."


End file.
